Bob Braun ran a blog post today that made it sound like parents were being thrown under the bus by the backroom negotiations going on between Governor Christie and the NJEA. The post suggested that the NJEA had negotiated a two-year delay in using PARCC for teacher evaluations and also a reduction in the percentage of a teachers evaluation based on PARCC. The post highlighted that the PARCC exam would still take place next year and implied that parents were being hurt by the agreement. We want to remind everyone that S2154/A3081 (the anti-high stakes testing bill we strongly support and that would have cleared the NJ Senate with the same overwhelming support it received in the Assembly, if Senator Sweeney had allowed it to go to a vote) did not stop the PARCC test. It only stopped the punishments - the accountability provisions of PARCC - for parents, schools and teachers. Stopping PARCC would not accomplish much as our children would still be subjected to high stakes testing through another common-core aligned exam. Stopping the stakes would stop the teaching to the test and the many punitive uses of the tests that are hurting our children, our schools and our teachers. We are withholding judgement on the outcome of the current negotiations until we see the contents of the Governors executive order and we are encouraging everyone to do likewise. This is only the first battle in our broader war against high-stakes standardized testing. Whatever the outcome of this battle - and some wins are already apparent - we have many more battles planned in the very near term. Please do not allow rumors to upset you. We will post as soon as reliable data becomes available.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 01:32:36 +0000